Watching her fade away a little more with each labored breath she takes.
This isn’t how this was supposed to happen—it isn’t how any of this was supposed to go. When we first made the plan to come back, together, I thought we’d covered every contingency, had thought of anything that might possibly go wrong. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I never, never thought it would end up like this.
If I’d had a clue, I would have found another way. Any other way, even if it meant staying encased in stone, locked up with Grace, forever.
I run a hand through my hair, glancing around at the sheer destruction I’d leveled on this forest. I should come out and plant saplings in the spring. Grace would want that.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll destroy you,” Jaxon snarls at me as the last rock covers her. He’s obviously spoiling for a fight.
But I’m not biting. I’m not going to be drawn into an argument when he wants to act like a child. So I swallow the eight thousand things I could say in response and settle for the pure, unvarnished truth. “If this doesn’t work, you won’t have to.”
Because what the fuck am I supposed to do if Grace doesn’t make it out of that grave? How the fuck am I supposed to live with myself…or just live, for that matter, without her?
“I can’t believe this is happening,” her cousin says, tears still pouring down her face.
Jaxon glares at me. “It shouldn’t be happening.”
I return the look with interest. “Maybe it wouldn’t be if you’d killed that bloody wolf the first time you had a shot at him.”
Okay, so maybe I am biting a little after all.
I can put up with a bloody buggering lot from my younger brother—and I have—but I’m not taking responsibility for something he should have taken care of to begin with.
“You really think my killing Cole would have prevented this?” he demands.
I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have prevented this, short of wrapping Grace in cotton and keeping her as far away from our father as we could. Then again, he would have found her eventually. Whether any of them know it or not, Cyrus has been gunning for her from the moment he first found out she was a gargoyle. Probably before.
“So what do we do now?” Macy asks, her voice echoing in the tense, angry silence that weighs between us. Her tears have finally stopped, but she sounds almost as empty as I feel as she stares down at the stone-covered grave.
“Now we wait,” Jaxon tells her. “What else is there to do?”
Nothing. If I thought there was something, anything else I could do to help Grace, I would be doing it.
“How long should it take?” Macy shifts her weight back and forth, like she’s too nervous to stand still.
“I don’t know.” And I don’t care. I’ll stand here as long as I have to if it means Grace comes out of that ground healed.
“Is there anything you do know?” Jaxon demands, and there’s a distrust in his eyes that slays me even as it makes me want to punch the shit out of him. “Why the fuck did you have to come back anyway? Things were fine before you got here—”
“By fine, you mean everyone thought I was dead, and you were wallowing in your own despair, throwing your life away like a total wanker? Because if that’s your definition of fine, then yes. Things were great.”
“Throwing my life away? I was trying to get my shit back together after everything you did and then what Mom…” He drifts off, but his scar stands out in stark relief against his cheek despite the weather.
And maybe I should feel bad about what our mother did to him, but fuck that. He has no idea how easy he’s had it.
“Oh, did Mummy not love you enough?” I make a fake-concerned face. “Poor little Jaxy-Waxy. It’s so hard to be you.”
“I should have done a better job of killing you when I had the chance.” He glares at me like he’s measuring me for a body bag…again. Big surprise.
“You really should have,” I agree with a deliberately bland expression. “Apparently you have a real history of screwing things up and then feeling bad for yourself. And of expecting everyone else to feel bad for you, too.”
“You know what? Fuck you! I don’t need anyone to feel bad for me.”